[Pez]

Ok folks, first I want to say that this is NOT the Hapa Audio speaker cable everyone is wanting me to build, rather, I would refer to this as an opportunity to experiment with geometry and to 'group source' some ideas for this project. mresseguie and I thought it would be fun to get some ideas from some of the people here on AC as to what to do with this project. 

Without further adieu, here is what we've got!

mresseguie approached me with some materials he had. the material, a set of speaker cables (who's manufacturer will NOT be mentioned and I ask for all those reading this to REFRAIN FROM GUESSING/SAYING who's material this is. Any post that speculates will be remove from the thread)





Mresseguie's request: Make something that sounds better. I'll be honest, with the odd material selection and relative difficulty of just dealing with this amount of wire I was/am both terrified and intrigued.



Materials
The materials consists of:
solid core silver
teflon insulated
each strand measures approximately .3 mm diameter which is about 29 gauge.
There are 36 individual wires per pole (36 for + 36 for -)
Length is just about 3 meters.
TOTAL
64 wires per speaker cable times 2 speaker cables @ 3 meters.





Group dev

I have a few ideas for what to do with the wire. I genuinely think the overall material quality is pretty damn good. most of my ideas surround doing something unique with geometry. I have purchased a nylon core that I was thinking of using in the middle ala Breathe C, the only difference being the way I approach the geometry must be different because of the way the materials are arranged. The original arrangement can only be described as a 'shotgun' arrangement. IE no geometry, all wires were just straight shot from amp end to speaker end.

After a day of untangling an absolute rats nest of wire, I have everything separated out, spooled up and ready to go! All that's missing is your feedback on how we should proceed. We're looking forward to your feedback!

[Tyson]

One question - if you braid it, will it end up being shorter than the original speaker cable?

[Pez]

One question - if you braid it, will it end up being shorter than the original speaker cable?

Great question, It definitely will. The goal is to end up with 6ish feet (2 meters) so my braiding options are somewhat limited.

[nlitworld]

just dealing with this amount of wire I was/am both terrified and intrigued.

I have a few ideas for what to do with the wire. most of my ideas surround doing something unique with geometry. I have purchased a nylon core that I was thinking of using in the middle ala Breathe C, the only difference being the way I approach the geometry must be different because of the way the materials are arranged. The original arrangement can only be described as a 'shotgun' arrangement. IE no geometry, all wires were just straight shot from amp end to speaker end.

Interesting project for sure. Braided geometry ultra fine wire would likely sound good but doing so with that many wires would be daunting. Counter rotating braid is popular albeit tricky to work with in that kind of quantity, and multiple twisted pair cables are popular in DIY circles as well but those usually revolve around a normal 16g wire. Would it be possible to make a combo of a geometry braiding of a smaller, more manageable batch (say 16 wires) that is then braided into an overall full sized cable? Not sure if it would sound horrible from cross contamination or if it would pick up that super clean, smooth sound your braided cables tend to have. Could also do a flat ribbon cable, but that would be a nightmare keeping track of all those little wires. I'm intrigued as to how you approach this and the results, but I am not envious of all that wire stripping 

[Tyson]

I’d probably twist all the white wires together and twist all the red wires together.  Then twist the grouped red wires and grouped white wires together. 

[mresseguie]

Sounds like a fun project if I may say so myself! 😁

When I get home today, I’ll measure some distances to determine if s 5’ length is manageable.

Thank you, Jason, for tackling this project!

Michael

[Cheytak.408]

Great question, It definitely will. The goal is to end up with 6ish feet (2 meters) so my braiding options are somewhat limited.

Weird speaker cable stories:  back in the day when Teflon insulated Cat5 speaker cables were all the rage, I did this -

Twist unjacketed Cat5 bundles.  Twist two bundles CW, twist 2 bundles bundles CCW.  Do a 4 bundle 1 over 1 braid.  Join all of the solid color wires together.  Join all of the color striped white wires together.  This gave +/- legs.  Do this again and twist the resulting braids together until the desired gauge was achieved.

This method gave the lowest inductance possible for all of those individual wires.  Capacitance?  Yeah, lots.

This made some damned good, cheap speaker cables.  OFHC copper with Teflon insulation for a song.

I did a variation of this to make interconnects out of enameled magnet wire (30ga &28ga combos) that sounded stupid good for what they were, too.

[Pez]

It’s funny you mention cat 5. That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw this wire. It’s almost identical in size to cat 5 wire. Ultra thin and about the same amount of dielectric.

The biggest concern I have is precisely what you outlined, inductance and capacitance. With this much wire it is possible that inductance might be too high. I don’t know much on what that means for sound quality, but if it breeches a certain threshold it can cause an amp to go into oscillation.

With the higher capacitance, did you notice any sort of bass issues? Also curious about the amp/speaker combo you were using.

[mresseguie]

It’s funny you mention cat 5. That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw this wire. It’s almost identical in size to cat 5 wire. Ultra thin and about the same amount of dielectric.

The biggest concern I have is precisely what you outlined, inductance and capacitance. With this much wire it is possible that inductance might be too high. I don’t know much on what that means for sound quality, but if it breeches a certain threshold it can cause an amp to go into oscillation.

With the higher capacitance, did you notice any sort of bass issues? Also curious about the amp/speaker combo you were using.

Jason,

Would a SS amp behave differently from a tube amp in the above capacitance issue? Is one amp preferred?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I measured distances from my main amp to my speakers. 5' speaker cables would not be ideal in my main system (5 1/2' to 6' would fit better), but would work quite well in a secondary system. I guess the goal is to make them close to 6 feet long unless I give up the idea of using them in my main system. Of course, there's no guarantee they'll sound 'right' in my main system. This whole thing is a grand experiment for me. 

[Tyson]

Capacitance acts as a high frequency filter (ie, it rolls off the highs, like a capacitor would).  But I seriously doubt any level of capacitance in a speaker wire would actually affect any roll off at any audio frequency. 

Inductance acts as a low frequency filter (ie, it rolls off the lows, like an inductor would).  Again, I'd be very surprised if any speaker cable had enough inductance to affect the frequency response of your actual speaker. 

[Wig]

Pez,

What an awesome project and lots of great information given as well  I will be checking in
on the final project 

Wig

[WGH]

I use a double run of Kimber Kable 4VS speaker cable that I bought back in 1993. I don't even know if wire specs were published back then, I just went into my favorite brick and mortar stereo store and bought whatever speaker wire they recommended.

Now Kimber publishes wire specifications so a while back I looked up specs on Kimber, they probably haven't changed in 20 years. Probably a good starting point for cable design:

8TC HIGH CURRENT BRAIDED LOUDSPEAKER CABLE
16 strands of 19.5 AWG OFE (oxygen free electrolytic) copper with industry leading conductivity. (102% IACS).
Aggregate combination of 8, 19.5AWG strands≈9AWG per +/- leg.
Teflon insulation. White/Clear
LOW series induction design: 0.09 uH / meter

(Cp) parallel capacitance: 346 pF / meter
(Ls) series inductance: 0.09 uH / meter
(Rdc) dc loop resistance: 0.008 Ohm / meter

[Pez]

Jason,

Would a SS amp behave differently from a tube amp in the above capacitance issue? Is one amp preferred?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I measured distances from my main amp to my speakers. 5' speaker cables would not be ideal in my main system (5 1/2' to 6' would fit better), but would work quite well in a secondary system. I guess the goal is to make them close to 6 feet long unless I give up the idea of using them in my main system. Of course, there's no guarantee they'll sound 'right' in my main system. This whole thing is a grand experiment for me. 

Good to know, I think the end result shouldn’t be shorter than 6 feet, but it’s good to know for sure. I am going to undo the work I’ve done as it’s obviously not going to work due to inconsistencies in the way the geometry looks (very uneven and wonky). I’m going to try to do something a bit less involved as the current geometry was causing way too much headache. I’m thinking 4 legs, each on a braid unto itself and then combine two braids at the terminal ends.

 

[Pez]

Capacitance acts as a high frequency filter (ie, it rolls off the highs, like a capacitor would).  But I seriously doubt any level of capacitance in a speaker wire would actually affect any roll off at any audio frequency. 

Inductance acts as a low frequency filter (ie, it rolls off the lows, like an inductor would).  Again, I'd be very surprised if any speaker cable had enough inductance to affect the frequency response of your actual speaker.

Whether it would cause an actual amp failure is probably not realistic I agree, Obviously we don’t want to cause any aberration in the frequency response either. I’m thinking a braid sort of similar to the one on the DIY cables you have in your system, but on a smaller scale.

[Cheytak.408]

It’s funny you mention cat 5. That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw this wire. It’s almost identical in size to cat 5 wire. Ultra thin and about the same amount of dielectric.

The biggest concern I have is precisely what you outlined, inductance and capacitance. With this much wire it is possible that inductance might be too high. I don’t know much on what that means for sound quality, but if it breeches a certain threshold it can cause an amp to go into oscillation.

With the higher capacitance, did you notice any sort of bass issues? Also curious about the amp/speaker combo you were using.

Amps we're KSA250 monoblocks.  Speakers were mebuilt MTMWW 5ohm loads.  The Krells would drive a cast iron pipes and bass (or treble, for that matter) was not an issue.  The cables were only 4' long.  Capacitance does not drive LF issues as Tyson noted.

Counter-spiraling the wire bundles helped to keep inductance low, as did the 1 over 1 x 4 braid.